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Best Comedy Showcase

Conan O’Brien may have left us for L.A. but New York screwball comedy lives on at the monthly screenings hosted by the web comedy network Channel 101 ($5; next screening is March 4). Over a hundred attendees, including participating comedians, rate a slate of five-minute viral videos by secret ballot. The top five get uploaded and are invited to post again the following month, while the rest are dubbed “failed pilots” (though win or lose, episodes remain on the site forever). The democratic process is pretty good at picking hits. Past screenings have landed actual TV deals, including Adult Swim’s “Fat Guy Stuck in Internet” and MTV’s “Human Giant.”

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So what exactly does “best” mean in a city with thousands of pizza joints, hundreds of celebrity masseuses, and museum-worthy concept shops on every corner? Well, in the case of this, our annual “Best of New York” roundup, there’s a heavy emphasis on what’s new or what has somehow remained virtually unheard of (until now, of course).